Kay McClenney, director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas, will share her extensive national expertise with Muskegon Community College faculty and staff on Tuesday, March 27.
McClenney will address “Helping Students Achieve the Dream: What’s in the Way?” from 8:30-9-30 a.m. in Stevenson Center Room 1100. A half-hour question-and-answer period will follow.
MCC participants will then break into small groups to discuss the College’s practices and policies with a focus on identifying those that inadvertently keep students from being successful. Discussion topics include: counseling and advising, financial aid, goal tracking, undecided students, goal tracking, online learning, orientation, placement and preparedness, professional development requirements for staff and faculty, scheduling and late start, tutoring and supplemental instruction, and written communication with students.
Refreshments will be served during the discussion scheduled for 10-10:30 a.m.
“Faculty and staff support Achieving the Dream in theory, but aren’t sure how they can adopt the student success agenda in practice,” said MCC English instructor Jenny Klingenberg.
“Dr. McClenney will help us take a no-holds-barred look at our policies and procedures,” added Kelley Conrad, chair of counseling and advising at MCC. “Attendees will come away with a better understanding of what barriers we may unwittingly be creating that block students’ paths to success.”
Klingenberg and Conrad, members of MCC’s Achieving the Dream Committee, are coordinating McClenney’s visit. At the University of Texas, McClenney is senior consultant on the national Achieving the Dream initiative and co-director of Student Success BY THE NUMBERS, funded by the Greater Texas Foundation. She was co-director of CLASS — the California Leadership Alliance for Student Success and of the national Bridges to Opportunity initiative. She previously served for 10 years as vice president and chief operating officer of the Education Commission of the States.
She has served as a consultant to education institutions, state higher education systems, state government, and professional associations in 47 states and internationally. In addition, she served for a number of years as a community college educator, during which she was a faculty member, program director, system administrator, and interim CEO.
The Center, directed by McClenney at UT, conducts the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) and the Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE). The Center has now surveyed nearly two million community college students at more than 800 colleges in 50 states. McClenney also directs the Center’s Initiative on Student Success, a long-term student focus group research initiative supported by the MetLife Foundation and Houston Endowment Inc.